Luxury car wars: Audi’s £19bn plan to beat BMW December 27, 2014 Audi has unveiled a five-year plan to steal BMW's crown as the world's biggest luxury car maker. In a statement, the company said it will spend €24bn (£19bn) – €2bn more than originally planned – over the next five years. The German company, which is owned by Volkswagen, said €16.8bn – 70 per cent – [...]
Finsbury Park becomes one of London’s largest transport hubs as engineering works at King’s Cross continue to overrun December 27, 2014 Avoid Finsbury Park #railway & #underground it's crazy here, stuck in a corridor over 1hr, disorganised chaos #London pic.twitter.com/wLyL1qnSnv — Jim Ewing (@jimewing) December 27, 2014 Finsbury Park station was shut by Network Rail due to "dangerous overcrowding" this afternoon as London was hit by a second day of rail chaos as engineering works around [...]
Yippee-ki-yay: Russian government spends £1.6bn bailing out Bruce Willis’ favourite bank December 27, 2014 The Russian government says it will spend $2.5bn (£1.6bn) bailing out one of its largest lenders, five times what it originally expected to spend, after the plummeting rouble caused its foreign-denominated debts to shoot up. The bank said on Friday it is planning to inject $2bn in direct aid into Trust Bank, with another $550m [...]
City Link workers demand urgent talks as 1,000 more jobs could be at risk December 27, 2014 Workers at City Link, the parcel delivery company which collapsed into administration on Christmas Eve, have demanded talks with administrators, as it emerged 1,000 more jobs than originally thought may be at risk. The BBC reported that leaders at the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union has written an open letter to business minister Vince [...]
Cheers: FTSE closes after festive rally to end 0.18 per cent higher December 24, 2014 The FTSE 100 ended the festive period comfortably above 6,600 today, at 6,609.93, 0.18 per cent up on last night's close. It's a decent (nearly) end to the year for the FTSE, which has gained more than 400 points in recent days as markets rallied in time for the festive period. The Santa rally started [...]
Alibaba has spent $160m weeding out counterfeits December 24, 2014 Recently-listed Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba has admitted it's spent $160m (£103m) since the beginning of last year sniffing out counterfeit goods on its site. The company, which made the largest stock market debut in history back in September when it raised $25bn on its listing in New York, said today it is planning to increase [...]
EasyHotel chief financial officer Darren Mee steps down December 24, 2014 Here's a late contender for 2014's chief financial officer carousel: Darren Mee, the chief financial officer at recently-listed EasyHotel, has stepped down, saying he wants to "pursue another opportunity". No word on what aforementioned opportunity is, but the company said its board had "accepted his resignation", adding that Mee will step down on 29 January. EasyHotel, [...]
Dow Jones hits 18,000 as US growth is revised to its highest in a more than a decade December 23, 2014 Here's a nice early Christmas present for Barack Obama: the Dow Jones Industrial Average smashed past 18,000 for the first time ever today, as third-quarter US growth was revised up to five per cent – the country's fastest pace of growth in 11 years. The Dow jumped 0.3 per cent to 18000.24 in early trading, [...]
Ronnie Scott’s evacuated as fire starts in nearby restaurant December 23, 2014 Legendary Soho jazz venue Ronnie Scott's has been evacuated after a fire broke out in a restaurant nearby. Six fire engines and 35 firefighters were called to the scene in Frith Street, central London, at about 12.30pm. https://twitter.com/CharlyBrough/status/547375742435471360 The London Fire Brigade said the cause of the fire was "not yet known" It is believed [...]
How much of an effect did the North Korea DDoS attack actually have? Here’s what we know about internet access in the country December 23, 2014 Reports of a massive, nine-and-a-half hour internet outage after a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack in North Korea – possibly by the US, possibly in revenge for the Sony hack – have raised eyebrows. The country famously censors its internet to the point of uselessness. So just how much of an effect did [...]
